


Lalotai Matchmaking

by jadewolf



Series: Adventures of Team Crab [5]
Category: Moana (2016)
Genre: Friendship, Humor, Matchmaking, Mild Suggestive Themes, Monster Matchmaking, Multi, Rīpekanga!Verse, Sexual Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 13:49:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18740314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadewolf/pseuds/jadewolf
Summary: Some time after the events of Rīpekanga, Aiata and Tamatoa attempt to find Tuahangata some companionship.  A fluffy, funny short in the Rīpekanga series.





	Lalotai Matchmaking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raptormoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raptormoon/gifts).



> I wrote this last month as a present for RaptorMoon's birthday! And so, for this lovely Tamatoa Tuesday, I am here to share it all with you now too!

“You want to _what?_ ”

Tamatoa was looking at her like she had grown an extra pair of legs.

“Just what I said,“ she told him, undeterred.  “I want to find him a mate.”

“But, Aiata… I mean… look at him!”  Flabbergasted, he waved a claw in the direction of their demigod companion.  Tuahangata was just out of earshot, busying himself with prepping a fire for them to roast tonight’s kill.  “This is _Lalotai_.  There’s no humans here for him to mate with!”

She crossed her claws in front of her, a gesture she had no doubt picked up from spending so much time in Tua’s company.

“Yes, well.  He’s not human,” she retorted.  “He’s a _demigod_.  They’re…” she paused, looking for the right word.  “... _durable._  There’s no reason we can’t find him a nice monster instead!”

Tamatoa quirked a skeptical eye, then looked back across to Tua—who had, by the look of it, thankfully not overheard any of this conversation.  “I dunno,” he hedged.“Doesn’t seem like he _wants_ a mate.  He hasn’t gone _looking_.”

Except Aiata knew differently.  As a rule, she didn’t keep secrets from Tamatoa; they shared everything with each other.  This particular secret, however, was not hers to share.Tua had told her in strictest confidence and, even if Tua _had_ let his standards fall abysmally low, she would not betray that trust.  Particularly when she knew Tama would tease him mercilessly for it.

Regardless, she had good reason for thinking her friend needed some companionship.  And plenty of ways to explain without revealing Tua’s secret.

“He’s a _fertility_ deity, Tama,” she insisted, going for the more obvious explanation.  “I’m pretty sure a fertility deity _needs_ to mate.”

It was a good point and she could see Tamatoa was having difficulty arguing with it.  But her mate was a clever crab and quickly found a counterpoint.“He’s so _tiny_ , though.  How is he going to mate with a monster?!”

She had to give Tama credit, it _would_ have been a solid argument under normal circumstances.  Most monsters in Lalotai were enormous and it was almost inconceivable for a human-sized creature to couple with one.

But Tamatoa didn’t know just how _inventive_ Tuahangata had gotten with one of the locals.  It wasn’t her place ot tell him, either.So, she would just work around his otherwise solid argument.

“We’ll find one that’s of a comparable size and shape,” she countered.  “I’m sure we can find _something_ with compatible biology.”

Tamatoa remained unconvinced.  “Do you even know _how_ humans—yes, I know he’s not one but he’s _shaped_ like one!—mate?”

Aiata hesitated.  “Well, no,” she admitted.

She had seen a good deal of human anatomy over the years, but those explorations were largely confined to how to effectively hunt them and which parts had the most agreeable flavor.  She could tell males from females easily enough, both by scent and by anatomical features—she knew that male humans only had _one_ gonopod, for instance, which must be _very_ boring for those poor human females.  So she had a rough idea that _some_ elements of their coupling might be at least superficially similar to her own kind.  But she had never seen any humans actually mating—a fact that Tama was now seizing upon.

“When is their season?” he asked her, pressing his advantage.  “Do they have special mating rituals and dances?What if they need certain surface foods in order to produce young?  What if—”

All it took to halt his trail of excuses was a sharply disapproving look from Aiata.  Then his wild speculation dissolved into a sheepish grin.“Hey, mammals are weird!I’m just saying that we don’t know that a monster will make a suitable mate for him.”

Oh, if only Tamatoa knew.  But Tua would never hear the end of it, if he did.

“Tama, don’t be an ass,” she said, watching as his grin grew _more_ sheepish.  “He’s lonely, he needs a mate, and a monster _will_ be perfectly suitable.”  Really, _any_ monster would be more suitable than the one Tua had experimented with.

“ _We_ …” Aiata emphasized the _we_.  “...are going to find him one.”

There was no further arguing and Tamatoa knew it.

“Alright, alright,” he acquiesced.  “We’ll find him… something.”He wasn’t convinced, that much was obvious, but he knew how much Tua’s friendship meant to her.  And even though he didn’t share her high opinion of the demigod, he would help her.

She smiled, brushing her antennae against his in a long caress.  “Thank you, Tama.”

“This is gonna be a disaster,” he muttered, but only half heartedly.

She grinned.  “No it won’t, you’ll see.  Now _hush_ , here he comes.”

\---

Aiata decided to start small--quite literally.  She set out to find something of a comparable size to Tua as her first priority.  Tamatoa wasn’t wrong, though.There were few monsters small enough to match his size.  And those that _did_ exist were… well… difficult to convince.

Of course, it didn’t help that creatures of that size were more usually on the _menu_.  It made starting a conversation with them rather challenging.  They tended to scurry away in terror before she could even bring up the subject.

She had decided to try one of the masked sloth monsters first.  They had more arms than Tua did, but they were mammalian and of a similar size.  Their tool use and propensity for wood carving seemed human-like enough to perhaps strike a familiar chord with Tuahangata.  They were also abundant in the immediate area around the lair, too.It seemed like a good fit.

_Catching_ one, however, was another matter.  They learned fast and after a few years of being preyed upon, they now tended to retreat into their burrows at the first sign of the crabs being outside the lair.  It had taken a coordinated effort by the two of them to finally corner one.

Once caught, it commenced screeching and yelling so much Aiata was having trouble getting its attention while Tamatoa held it still.

“Hey, shhhh,” she tried to soothe it.  “We’re not going to hurt you.”

“Not this time, anyway,” Tamatoa said, sotto voce.

She shot him a dirty look.  “Not _helping_ , Tama.”

He flashed her a toothy grin, which did nothing to help pacify the frightened sloth.

“Look, we really _aren’t_ going to hurt you,” she attempted again to reassure the sloth as it wriggled in Tama’s grasp.  “We just want you to meet our friend, that’s all.”

The little sloth, a female by the smell of it, chittered something angrily up at her.

“What?  No!” she responded.  “He’s not a crab, he’s a demigod.  He needs some companionship and I thought…”

The sloth unleashed another torrent of heated words from behind her glowing wooden mask.

“Just give it a try,” she countered.  “Please?If you do, we’ll… uh… we’ll leave your band of sloths alone from now on.”

Tamatoa blinked, his antennae shooting straight up.  “Wait, what?I didn’t agree to--”

Aiata gave him a sharp look, silencing him.  Then she looked back to the she-sloth, who had stopped squirming to consider the offer.

“Just see if you like him,” she urged.  “And I promise we’ll leave your band alone.”

A moment passed, then the sloth tilted her mask up to peer critically up at Aiata with glittering purple eyes.  Then she chirped her tentative agreement.

Aiata grinned, feeling rather vindicated.  “Perfect.”She nodded to Tama to release the little sloth.

Tamatoa grumbled something about wasting food.

“Oh, for goodness sake, Tama,” she countered.  “You don’t even _like_ the way they taste.”

He raised a claw to his chin in a gesture of melodramatic affront, but smirked nevertheless and opened his other claw to let the sloth go.

The sloth skittered away a few steps to put space between herself and the claw, yanking her mask back down and letting loose a long string of obscenities up at Tamatoa.  Then she turned to look back to Aiata, chirruping a question.

Aiata nodded.  “A promise is a promise.  Just… give it a try,” she coaxed once more.  “His name is Tuahangata and he’s about your size, carries a spear, and his markings glow.  You can’t miss him, he’s probably off by the river this time of night.”

The sloth listened, then turned to go.

“Oh, and just between us ladies,” Aiata added before the sloth could depart.  “Don’t let him know we put you up to it.”

Aiata couldn’t see the sloth’s face behind the painted mask, but she somehow got the impression that the creature was rolling her eyes at her.

Nevertheless, the sloth nodded and then hurried off towards the river.

Pleased, Aiata turned to Tamatoa.  “See, that wasn’t so hard!”

\---

Of course, it couldn’t be so easy.

Aiata didn’t know exactly what went wrong, but apparently Tua and the sloth hadn’t really hit it off.  Maybe it was the language barrier.Maybe it was the extra pair of arms.Maybe he was more interested in other males now than females.

Aiata knew he’d had a female mate before, hundreds of years before he had come to Rīpekanga.  But she also knew that the local monster, whose name she would not speak, that he’d dallied with was male.  Perhaps that was more to his liking now.She would try finding a male next.There were also creatures in Lalotai that didn’t fit into male or female categories--a vast rainbow of different reproductive strategies existed here.  She’d try sending some other types his way, too--just to cover all bases.

Tamatoa, meanwhile, was already complaining about how brazen the local sloth tribe had become in the wake of that early attempt at finding Tua a partner.

“They’re everywhere now, Aiata!” he groused.  “Practically on our doorstep!It’s an infestation!”

“It’s not _that_ bad.”

“And I can’t even eat them now!”

“You didn’t like them anyway,” she reminded him.

Tamatoa huffed.  “Well, no.But what if I want a quick snack?”

Aiata laughed.  “Then lure some fish down, shiny boy,” she teased.

Then she trailed her antennae lightly over his treasure-encrusted back, an invitation as much as a distraction.  Her voice lowered.“Besides...”She whispered something meant only for him, but strongly implying that fish weren’t the _only_ thing attracted to the way he shimmied his shell.

That was all it took to put an end to Tamatoa’s complaints, though Aiata _did_ refrain from offering any further protection agreements to potential suitors after that.

\---

Over the next several years, she continued to send a wide variety of creatures to Tuahangata.  She sent him monsters of all sizes, shapes, and sexes.She even found a couple of smaller, but _respectable_ , crabs to court him.

Despite the repeated failures, Aiata would not be deterred.

Her awkward early attempts were quickly refined as she developed more discerning criteria for potential suitors.  When it became clear that, despite the tryst he had confided in her about, he wasn’t looking for casual mating, she narrowed her focus to monsters with appropriate _personality_ traits.

But finding monsters that were a good social fit _and_ biologically compatible was even _more_ difficult.  She wasn’t going to give up, though.

“What about _that_ one?” she whispered to Tamatoa, peering over the coral embankment to observe the latest potential candidate she had found.

“Uhhh, I dunno,” Tamatoa replied in a whisper of his own.  “You remember what happened when we sent that octopus.”

Aiata winced.  No, that one hadn’t gone well at all.  Poor Tua.She hoped he wasn’t _too_ traumatized by the experience.  Nevertheless…

“This is completely different,” she insisted.

Tamatoa quirked an eye and the corner of his lip turned down in clear skepticism.  “I count at least _two_ tentacles on this one.”

“Those aren’t _tentacles_ ,” she contended.  “The one in the back is a _tail_.”

“And the one in the front?”

“Maybe he’s just well-endowed?”  She muffled a giggle behind her claw.

Tamatoa snickered.  “Endowed with a _tentacle_.”

“You have to admit, he’s impressively proportioned!”

Tamatoa’s laughter cut off abruptly.  “Hey, what are you saying--”

She grinned, nudging him playfully with the edge of her shell.  “Don’t be jealous, Tama.You’ve got _two_ , after all.”

Tamatoa’s eyes tilted, narrowing to a salacious leer, and he seemingly forgot all about their prospective suitor for Tua.  “How about I remind you what I can _do_ with them,” he purred, reaching out with his antennae to trace up her neck.

Aiata shivered and her eyes swiveled back to her mate just as the tips of his antennae began to caress the base of her own.  He met her look with a wide, smug grin.

Thoroughly distracted, she nevertheless tore her gaze away to glance at the strange be-tentacled biped.  Maybe he _was_ a bit much.  Tentacles hadn’t really gone over well last time.  Maybe--

Something brushed against her pleopods with a feather light touch and she turned her full attention back to Tamatoa, who was beckoning her with a charmingly sly smile.

“You know, maybe you’re right…”

“I am absolutely right,” he asserted with complete confidence and a lascivious grin, giving her claw a gentle tug.  “Now c’mere, I want to _show_ you something...”

\---

The latest suitor, a very well-behaved canine monster, had moved on.  Aiata was actually rather disappointed; she’d liked the canid and thought his happy, upbeat personality might spark Tua’s interest.  But when Aiata had asked the departing canid how it went, he had only shrugged his furry shoulders, grinned sheepishly, and suggested she keep trying.

Aiata had every intention of doing just that.  Her repeated failures were disheartening, but not discouraging.   _Eventually_ Tua would find _someone_ special to fill that niche for him.  Until then, she would continue to look for those with potential to connect with him.

She mused about it quietly by the light of a fire Tua had built in the waning twilight hours of the evening.  Tamatoa, having eaten his fill of roasted _huepuaa_ , had retreated to the lair to sleep.  Aiata had remained behind, picking at the last remnants of her dinner and thinking about how to best proceed.

So engrossed in her own thoughts, she failed to notice Tuahangata joining her. 

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Tua said, breaking into her thoughts.

Aiata looked up from the nearly-cleaned rib bone she was picking at, meeting Tua’s gaze.  “Hmm?”

He sent a smile up to her.  “The furry gentleman?”

“Oh, _him_.”  Well, apparently Tua had caught on at last; or, at least, after decades of suitors, had finally decided to _say_ something about it.

“You know you don’t have to do that,” he told her, his tone kindly and eyes soft.

She smiled down at him in turn.  “You’re my friend, Tuahangata.I just want you to be _happy_ here with us.”

He reached out to place his small hand upon her enormous claw.  “Never doubt that I am indeed happy here, Chieftess.”

Still smiling, she returned the gesture, an antenna arching down to lightly touch his shoulder.  “I don’t want you to be _lonely_ either.”  Her lip quirked into a lopsided grin.  “You _are_ a _fertility_ deity, after all.  You said so yourself.”

Tuahangata chuckled.  “That I am.”

“And I’m just trying to find you some _better options_ ,” she said with a wink and a nod to his _secret_ _escapades_ with a certain _persona non grata_.

At the reminder, Tua looked slightly queasy.  “A fair point,” he acknowledged.Then his nauseated expression gave way to a warm smile again.  “But can I ask one thing?”

“Of course,” Aiata replied.  He was her oldest and best friend, aside from Tamatoa.  She would gladly carry out his request.“Anything you need.”

“Please, no more _tentacles_.”

Aiata couldn’t help but laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> So... who DID Tuahangata hook up with, you ask? What monster of ill-repute did he resort to in some drunken moment of weakness? Why is Aiata so _aghast_ at his poor choices? Well, that's a story for another time. XD
> 
> Aiata will never tell, though! So, I won't either. ;)
> 
> (But I _have_ done a drawing of this particular sleazy monster in question a while back.)
> 
> Just take my word for it, though, Tua could do _so_ much better!
> 
> PS - We're currently 75K words into the Rīpekanga sequel and climbing! Once we're done, we'll begin editing and posting. But that's a little ways off. So, in the interim, please enjoy some fluff. Because, trust me, you're gonna _need_ the fluff. XD >:D


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